Classmates Tweet And Text As Fellow Student Is Assaulted

Although the two boys were the ones charged with the crime and will be the only ones to stand trial, many in the community feel that the host of other students who witnessed the alleged sexual assault should be reprimanded as well.

A falling-down-drunk 16-year-old girl is inappropriately touched and sexually assaulted by two fellow high school students, once in a car and again at a friend’s house, while other teens tweet and text videos, photographs and gleeful descriptions of the incidents.

On Wednesday, two high school boys will stand trial on charges of forcing sex on the girl in August, but more is at stake than the futures of the defendants. Steubenville, once famous for steel, Dean Martin and football trophies, is also on trial, and it is fighting to clear itself of accusations that a small-town fixation on high school athletes allowed a hideous crime to occur in front of witnesses who didn’t report it.

“The actions of a few have basically condemned our whole city,” City Manager Cathy Davison said. “Obviously we do not support sexual assault.” Fallout from the case has prompted Steubenville, population 19,000, to hire a Washington-based crisis manager to guide it through the tumult.

Critics of the investigation, though, cannot understand why more people have not been charged with failure to report a crime.